


a light to take me home

by redledgers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rekindling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6554794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He does not ask her because he knows that they will figure this out as they always did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a light to take me home

Steve sets him up in a safe house buried somewhere in Manhattan, an apartment more homelike than a stuffy motel room. For that, he is grateful, but he is weary and doesn’t take stock in the rest of the place once he finds the bedroom. A knock at the door hours later rouses him, and he approaches, wary but curious. He is greeted by Steve’s friend, Natasha, who looks at him with an expression he cannot decode the way he can read emotions off targets.

She bites her lip. Then, carefully, she steps closer, into the personal space he has begun to relearn, and presses her lips softly against his.

Electric, he thinks, would be a good way to describe the feeling. Not in the way that he was hurt, but the way that recharged him, jolted his memory, and made him feel whole. He thinks he whimpered when she pulled away, but he cannot be sure if the noise was real. He can’t be sure anything is real.

When she sidesteps him, deftly moving to sit on the old sofa, he watches her, clocking her movements and wondering why, after everything, she would come here. She is a spy, he thinks, perhaps she is testing him. Testing his loyalty.

But there is an openness about her, a vulnerability that he is curious about, and so he crosses the room to sit beside her. They stare at each other, minutes passing before he reaches out to touch her cheek with his flesh hand, in a gentle way he can remember doing but he can’t remember when.

Natasha is in his lap in an instant, pausing before kissing him so hard he has to catch his breath when she pulls away. She lets his name drop from her lips, his real name, like a sacrament or a blessing, and he holds her face in his hands.

“I remember,” he manages, searching her eyes. “Natalia Alianovna.” He says her name like a prayer, an echo of a time gone by.

She lights up and he crumbles, letting decades of emotions crash over him as he clutches her, buries his face in the crook of her neck, and tries to remember. They fumble with clothes, out of practice in this dance, and he moans when she presses her skin against his. He returns the gesture, nuzzling her neck until she all but orders him to the bedroom.

He fucks her hard, gripping tight enough for bruises, but she gives as good as she gets. There is solace in the movements as he reclaims a part of him he didn’t know existed. Afterward, he discovers her skin is soft, littered with scars, and he remembers suddenly being responsible for some of them.

As soft as a feather, she kisses his frown. “Don’t do that to yourself,” she whispers, tucking herself against him. She is not scared of his metal arm, of the things he has done with it, because he knows the things she has done with her own body.

The night settles and they fall asleep together, lulled by steady breathing and soft noises of the street far below.

 

 

 

They don’t know he’s watching, or else he is sure the conversation would have played out differently. But his job has always been lurking in shadows, and he still takes to it in an uncanny way, a way that he knows Natasha understands.

Right now she is standing across from Steve. She looks small, defenseless, as he scolds her.

“What do you think you’re doing? He is not a mission, or whatever it is that you used to do before you came here. I don’t know if he’s dangerous for anyone else, and you did a damn good job fighting against him when you had the chance. Natasha, promise me that will never happen again.” Steve sounds like her father, he doesn’t sound like himself, and Bucky wonders what has changed.

“You’re not the only one who lost him, Steve,” Natasha replied simply.

Steve stares. Objectively he knows he should have knocked, but if Bucky hadn’t answered, he would have gone in anyway. But Natasha was an unexpected variable, and Bucky watches her as she stares back, unable or unwilling to say anything more about it.

He would make himself known, explain carefully in the way he was learning how to, but this was not his fight. He did not own Natasha, and this was not something he owed to Steve.

Steve can say nothing in return, nothing but a quiet, “Be careful,” before he turns to leave, back stiff and fingers flexing.

“You can come out now,” Natasha calls.

He does not ask her how she knows he was there because they have always been able to sense each other’s presence so long as they had the memory to do so. He does not ask how you can lose something you do not own because he knows now that this part of him had always been hers whether he knew it or not. He does not ask her anything because she is staring at him like he is sunshine or warmth or something wonderful.

He does not ask her because he knows that they will figure this out as they always did.


End file.
